HPAC Forum publishes milestone report to advance interprofessional education

The Health Professions Accreditation Collaborative Forum (the Forum) has marked a significant milestone in advancing interprofessional education (IPE) after publishing their report on Developing a Collaborative Health Practitioner through strengthened accreditation processes.

Over the last decade, the Forum has worked with a wide range of stakeholders to enhance IPE provided to Australian health profession students. The Forum established an IPE Working Group, led by Australian Pharmacy Council (APC) CEO, Bronwyn Clark, to further progress the IPE initiatives.

Ms Clark says APC fully supports the Forum's vision for a healthcare system where professionals from all fields seamlessly work together, creating better outcomes for patients.

"Interprofessional education is essential to the future of healthcare because it equips practitioners with the skills to work cohesively in diverse, multidisciplinary teams. It helps break down silos and encourages mutual respect and trust, which are vital in addressing the growing demands on healthcare systems.

"Accreditation can play a role as a lever to encourage and support IPE through ensuring the quality of collaborative health professionals upon graduation.

"With regards to pharmacy, we remain dedicated to ensuring that pharmacists continue to play a pivotal role in the interdisciplinary teams that are key to improving patient care and addressing future challenges."

The IPE research had two components:

• To gather perspectives on collaborative practice from consumers, health care practitioners and education providers as a program of education research.
• To collate and review examples of IPE and interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP) and determine how to support education providers and accreditation authorities in the provision of effective IPE.

Key findings:

• The project provided a deep understanding of interprofessional collaborative practice from a range of perspectives and collated the common views held by health consumers, education providers, and health practitioners regarding the required skills and attributes of the collaborative practitioner.
• Consumers see their role as central in the patient care team, and health care professionals need to ensure their voice, and that of their families, is included in decision-making
• A significant finding of this project is that developing collaborative practitioners requires more than a ‘tick box’ approach. IPE can be delivered in a range of methods to achieve the development of collaborative skills through their program.

Read the full report: Developing a collaborative health practitioner August 2024

The next steps for the Forum are to use this work to provide further guidance to accreditation authorities in both standard-setting and evidence examples to achieve more consistency in IPE expectations across the regulated health professions.

Further manuscripts for publication in the peer-reviewed literature have been submitted based on this research. One research article already published is in the Australian Health Review: Accreditation as a lever for change in the development of the collaborative practitioner in the Australian health system

In a Communique from the HPAC Forum, Ms Clarks extends her gratitude to Forum members and contributors for such a collaborative effort.

"It would not have been possible without the dedication of authors and contributors listed in the report and the participation of individuals who attended focus groups and gave feedback. We are thankful to you all," said Ms Clark.